Monday, July 14, 2008

Summer means cool treats, and none more delicious than ice cream. One of my current favorites is the Triple Chocolate Drumstick. When I was a child we always got our ice cream at Swensen's, a Bay Area original. The first shop was opened by Earle Swensen at Hyde and Union Streets atop Russian Hill, in San Francisco in 1948, and is still there today. We went to the local shop in San Anselmo with the 60 cents my mother gave us each week and bought a kiddie cone. One scoop chosen from the 160 flavors, always on a sugar cone. We were never allowed to get bubble gum, because of the gumballs. I lusted after bubblegum, of course. Once I got black licorice. As I recall, it was heady, delicious, and extremely messy. No doubt, not very many people would've agreed, and certainly not very many kids.

One lucky day my brother and I hit the ice cream jackpot. The teen aged girl behind the counter though we were cute, and told us that for our $.60 we could each have a dish of all the chocolate flavors. We were in frozen dairy heaven. My mom must've died when we came home, crowing about our grand luck. She was a sugar Nazi, and the weekly ice cream was her one concession. We always hoped that our luck would repeat, but it only happened that once. Later on, when I played softball, I ended up on a team that was sponsored by Swensen's. At the beginning, they told us that after a win, the team could come in for ice cream. I'm not sure if they ended up regretting this, or if it turned out to be a great promotion, because our team ended up being undefeated that year. (I assure you I had not much to do with the teams success, I was certainly one of the most lackadaisical right fielders known to modern history.) Yet,once again, I ended up in a sort of dessert eden. Ahh, youth.

Fortunello image from FFFFOUND!, A Nutritious Dairy Food.... from goantiques.com

2 comments:

Thank you Mary, I especially love the Italian poster, but after searching for hours for other vintage ice cream images, ended up loving the bottom one too. The little girls face is so delightful, and the her pursed rosebud lips are so charming.

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